


There Was a Time...

by TheAutotheist



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie) Spoilers, Discussion of Abortion, Don't bother reading this fic, Established Relationship, F/M, Female Steve Rogers, Forced Abortion, Heavy Angst, Miscarriage, Not Happy, Post-Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie), Unplanned Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-24
Updated: 2015-08-28
Packaged: 2018-04-16 22:21:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,495
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4642230
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheAutotheist/pseuds/TheAutotheist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steph was angrier than usual. And the events that followed Tony's little experiment with creating artificial intelligence certainly didn't help with that. If only dealing with Ultron could be the end of her problems. Things just got a whole lot more complicated.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is going to deal with some pretty dark stuff. I just want to give that warning as a heads up, in case it could be hard for anyone.
> 
> Also, spoilers for Age of Ultron, obviously.
> 
> Edit: I took this fic out of the A Girl, A Guy, and the Never-Ending War series because I stopped liking it and I didn't want it to be reflective of the rest of my stories. I'm not taking it down because, whatever. It's fanfiction. Since everyone seems to hate it, read at your own peril.

Yes, Steph was angrier than usual. And she was harder on her team. She almost couldn’t believe the words that came out of her mouth in the middle of the battle against Ultron. If you get killed, _walk it off_? Since when had she become that person? And then one of the Maximoffs did die. After the battle, after Ultron was finally defeated, she felt ashamed for her earlier words.

Steph found Wanda Maximoff sitting next to her brother’s body on the Helicarrier. Apparently the Vision had found her and brought her aboard. She was sitting on the ground with her back against the bench on which her brother’s body currently lay. Her knees were drawn up to her chest and her arms were wrapped around them. She stared out at nothing in particular.

Steph carefully set down her shield and sat on the floor next to her. She opened her mouth, but before she could say anything, Maximoff said, “I know what you’re going to say, Captain,” in her thick accent.

“Do you?” Steph asked.

“You are going to apologize for your earlier remark. It is pointless. Your command did not cause my brother’s death. And if you had not said it, it wouldn’t have prevented it.”

Steph glanced sideways at her. She was still staring straight ahead, her eyes unfocused. Steph recognized that kind of grief all too well. “I’m sorry…”

That did make Maximoff turn and look at her. She studied Steph, and for a moment Steph thought she was going to tell her off for her sympathy. Instead, she said, “You and I, we have dealt with much grief in our lives.” She turned to look at her brother. “I am all alone now, and I know you know that feeling.”

“I do…” Steph said quietly.

Maximoff looked back at her. Her eyes locked onto Steph’s. There was pain there, but still hardness. This was a person more accustomed to loss than gain. “But unlike you, I know for a fact everyone I have loved is dead. None of my family are going to magically reappear in my life.”

Steph opened her mouth, but she didn’t know what to say, so she closed it and looked away.

“I am sorry,” Maximoff said. She looked away from Steph again. “For the vision I showed you. For most, I seek out their fears.” Her eyes drifted down. “Fears of failure, of the future, of the parts of their past they would like to forget. But to you I showed a dream, a hope. Of a life you could have had.”

“Yeah…” Steph mumbled. Seeing the life she could have had after the war, could have had with _Bucky_ , was hard. But it was old pain. It had long since scarred over.

“For Stark, his weakness is his nightmare. For you, it is your dream.” Maximoff looked at her again. “Remember that, Captain.”

“I’ll keep it in mind…” Steph moved to stand again, but she paused. “Now that you aren’t trying to get revenge on Stark, what do you plan to do?”

“I do not know,” Maximoff said forlornly.

Steph looked at her. “This whole tussle wasn’t a one-time thing. There’s a spot for you on our team, if you want it.” She paused again. “You made a good Avenger.”

Maximoff turned and smiled at Steph tentatively. “I will think about the offer. Thank you.”

Steph nodded, and then stood and grabbed her shield in one motion. She continued to think about what Maximoff had said as she left to check on the rest of her team.

 

Bucky was waiting for her when they returned to New York. He and Sam had been on a mission, which was why he had not been on the Helicarrier to help in Sokovia. When he saw her, he went right to her and put his hands on her shoulders.

“Are you injured?” he asked quickly.

Steph shook her head, and then in front of everyone she leaned up and grabbed the back of his neck to kiss him hard. Someone whistled, but she didn’t see who it was. She pulled back just as fast as she had initiated the kiss. She was normally such a private person, but with everything that had happened, she couldn’t help herself that time. She didn’t touch him again until after they left. He lingered on the periphery until they were done with the mission debrief.

When they got home, they barely made it through the door before Steph slammed Bucky against the wall and kissed him again. Even if her aggression was unusual, he didn’t seem surprised, and he didn’t hesitate at all to match her pace.

She hadn’t seen him since before the party at Avengers Tower. She could have gone home before they set out to find Ultron, but she chose to stay at the Tower. Everyone on the team had a change of clothes there just in case, anyway. So she thought it would be easier to stay close if anything developed. And like hell she was going to leave Tony alone again. Even in the short time she was back in New York after South Korea, she only visited the Tower. During the battle, for a few seconds there, she thought she, and everyone in Sokovia, would die on that floating piece of rock. She had agreed with Natasha that if they couldn’t get the citizens off, then they weren’t going to escape either. But she couldn’t help the thought that Bucky would hate her for her decision. She was going to sacrifice herself again to save everyone. Fortunately, they were saved by Nick Fury’s Helicarrier.

If Bucky was aware of that moment, he didn’t say anything. But he was just as eager as she was. So even if he didn’t know the specifics, he could probably pick up that she had been close to dying on this last mission. The Avengers work was getting more dangerous. Here was another massive battle where he couldn’t help. They didn’t talk about it, but instead put all their thoughts into physical connection.

 

Honestly, Steph should have realized it sooner. With everything going on, it wasn’t too surprising she hadn’t. But all the signs were there. She felt like an idiot for not having put them together. But that feeling only lasted a minute before it was replaced by the sickening dread that lingered in its place.

It was actually a completely innocuous moment that made her figure it out. She was going over the plans for the new Avengers facility in upstate New York with Tony. It was actually just a retrofitted bunker Tony already owned, probably designed by Howard. Tony had made an offhand comment that it would be finished by the end of the month.

“So come July, you’ll have a fully functional training facility.”

Steph just barely managed to keep herself from jerking in surprise. July? It wasn’t that she had forgotten the date, but she hadn’t really thought about the fact that they were half way through June.

Tony must have noticed, because he said, “You okay, Cap?”

“Yes…” Steph mumbled. “Just fine. July is great.”

July was not great. July meant something awful. Because if it was almost July, it meant it was long after the beginning of May.

Steph tried her hardest to not seem like she was rushing out of there, and she mostly succeeded. She had never been more thankful for completely anonymous little drug stores, but she did wear her baseball cap and sunglasses just in case. When she got to the apartment, she locked herself in the bathroom. Thank god Bucky wasn’t home. And then she waited.

But she didn’t have to wait long. The little stick only confirmed her earlier suspicion.

Steph was pregnant.

She carefully rested her palms on the edge of the bathroom counter where the pregnancy test was balanced. It was true these things weren’t 100% accurate, but Steph knew it wasn’t wrong. The serum put her in peak physical health, which meant she was normally regular as clockwork. But her period was a month and a half late. So there was a pretty good chance the test was right.

Pregnant. She was _pregnant_.

Steph didn’t even know how to react to that. It wasn’t exactly surprising. While she and Bucky had been fastidiously careful during the war, they had slipped since he had broken free of Hydra.

What was she going to do? Keep it? _Could_ she keep it? She was an Avenger, for crying out loud! She constantly put herself in danger and risked her life. How could she care for someone else’s life? But Barton was an Avenger and managed to have a family. Though his wife did not also fight. She was normal. Meanwhile, Steph’s lover was an ex-brainwashed assassin. They weren’t exactly a regular couple.

And then there was the super soldier serum. Would it affect the baby? (Steph couldn’t believe she was already thinking of it as “the baby.”) Was it possible to pass down the serum? What would a super soldier baby look like? And then there was Bucky’s serum, too, which was less refined than hers. He had gone through all kinds of nasty medical experiments, and probably had a bad mixture of poisons permanently floating in his veins. Was her super soldier serum enough to combat that? Was any baby that they had together potentially doomed from the beginning?

Steph gripped the edges of the counter tighter. She couldn’t do that to a child. She had grown up sickly, and knew how hard it was. Being a product of the serum would be even harder, and she wouldn’t put a baby through that.

And what about Bucky? What would he say when he found out? Somehow, Steph was pretty sure he wouldn’t be excited at the prospect of having a child. Not that he was against the idea of kids. But he barely trusted himself around her. Knowing him, he would probably leave in some misguided attempt to protect the baby from any potential flashbacks he could have.

And Steph couldn’t lose him again. She just couldn’t.

She hadn’t realized how long she had been in the bathroom until a soft knock came at the door. “Steph, you in there?” Bucky’s voice said. “Everything okay?”

“Yup,” she said. She was almost surprised at how normal her voice sounded. Since when had she gotten so good at lying? She quickly stashed the pregnancy test under the counter behind some tampons and pads, where she was fairly certain Bucky would not be looking. She opened the door and smiled at him. “Just tired. Been talking with Tony all day about this new facility.”

Guilt and shame curled in her gut. She hadn’t lied to Bucky since… God, since before the war, when she couldn’t just tell him how she felt about him.

He looked at her for a moment, but he didn’t call her on her lie. “How’s it coming?”

“We’ll be up and running in two weeks.” She felt sick with herself. Or maybe that was the pregnancy. Who knew with these things?

“That was fast.”

“That’s Tony,” Steph said. She looked at him. “You could still join.”

He looked at her levelly, like he was still trying to figure out what she was hiding. “I’ll think about it,” he said at last.

Later, Steph snuck into the bathroom to retrieve the pregnancy test, under the guise of taking out the trash. That wasn’t exactly a lie. But she didn’t dump the pregnancy test in the building’s dumpster. Instead, he walked around the block and dumped it in a city trash can. She just hoped the guilt wouldn’t eat away at her before she was ready to tell Bucky. All she knew was that she couldn't tell him now, not until she knew what to do. The problem was, she really had no idea what to do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So as I rewatched Age of Ultron, I kept noticing how angry Steve is throughout the whole movie. And mean too. That "walk it off" line is just cruel. I know it's because he's having this whole character crisis around the concept of "home," but I had the thought that if Steve were female, it would obviously be for a completely different reason. So even though I _hate_ pregnancy fics, I wrote one. Also, I love Steph/Bucky, so any chance I get to write them, I'm gonna take it.


	2. Chapter 2

Steph sat to the side of the training room and watched their new recruits. They had split them into pairs for this round of training. Sam and Colonel Rhodes swooped around the ceiling, performing intricate aerial maneuvers both had clearly learned in the Air Force. Meanwhile, the Vision and Maximoff were engaged in some kind of mental battle. She would put them through more traditional training exercises in a bit, but they needed to know how their teammates fought so they wouldn’t get in each other’s way. Or in case one of them went rogue, though Steph hoped that wouldn’t happen.

She, herself, hadn’t exactly resolved the issues that brought her and Tony to blows. Sure, the Ultron situation put them all on edge, especially on top of the visions Maximoff had shown each of them. But Tony was never going to admit he was wrong. However, he had decided to take a break from the Avengers, so it wasn’t worth it to pursue that particular argument. Tony and his secrets… Yet here she was, keeping a huge secret of her own.

Steph sighed just as Nat sat down next to her. “Something troubling you, Cap?” she asked. Her eyes stayed on the recruits as she asked this.

Steph looked at her and considered for a moment. She would never be able to deal with something this big on her own. And no one was better at keeping secrets than Natasha Romanoff. So Steph said, “Yes,” and pulled her ear piece out. It was off, but she wasn’t taking any chances.

Natasha looked at her with mild surprise. Perhaps she hadn’t expected an answer, or perhaps she was surprised whatever it was had to be was big enough that Steph didn’t want anyone overhearing. But she didn’t hesitate to follow suit and remove her own ear piece.

Steph took a deep breath and thought about explaining herself, or going for subtlety. In the end, she decided simplicity was best. “I’m pregnant.”

Natasha looked at her for a long time without blinking. Her expression was blank, so it was impossible to tell what she was thinking, though her eyes were hard. Finally, she said, “How far along?”

“Two months, maybe…”

“You don’t know exactly?”

Steph shook her head. “I can’t really go to a doctor. And there’s no SHIELD anymore.” She looked around the facility. “If people know Captain America is pregnant… I’ve been a symbol for a lot of my life now. That’s part of the job. But if everyone knows, then whatever action I take becomes about the symbolic gesture. And I don’t want that. This is only about me, and Bucky, and…” She looked down.

Natasha watched her. “I know someone you can go to. Spies getting pregnant isn’t exactly an unheard of occurrence. Though this doctor mostly gets rid of pregnancies. Every now and then, a woman wants to keep the baby, though.”

“I’d… Yeah.” Steph looked at her and then down again. “Thanks.”

There was a pause as they both knew what Natasha was going to ask next. “So which are you?”

Steph sighed. “I don’t know.” She looked up at their four new Avengers. Each was far enough away that there was no chance of being overheard. “I’m an Avenger. I don’t exactly have time for a baby. And I can’t just take off, what, nine months? A year? What if something like Ultron happens again?”

“Then we’ll deal with it on our own.”

“I can’t just sit by while you all are dealing with a world-ending situation.” Tony was right, there were sure to be more events like the Chitauri invasion.

“We’ll figure it out, Steph.”

Steph sighed again. “And then there’s actually raising a kid…”

Natasha watched her. “Steph, have you told Barnes yet?”

“I…” Steph looked down. “No. I haven’t.”

“Why?”

Steph looked down at her hands. “I’m afraid he’ll leave.”

“Really? The man would actually both kill and die for you, and you think he would leave because you got pregnant?”

“No, not for that reason. He’d leave to protect us.” She looked at Nat. “He would. And I spent enough time trying to find him again. I don’t want him to leave.”

Natasha looked at her for a long moment. “Maybe he won’t.”

“Maybe,” Steph said as she gazed out at the recruits again. “But I don’t want to take that chance.”

“You’re going to have to tell him eventually.”

“I’ll tell him after I’ve decided what to do.”

Natasha continued to watch her, but she didn’t say anything else. The next day, she connected Steph with this doctor, and they found out Steph was nine weeks pregnant. She was also in peak health. As far as the doctor could tell, the developing fetus was perfectly fine.

 

But Steph didn’t tell Bucky. With each passing week, she knew she was getting closer to the next trimester, and she had to make a definite decision about whether or not she wanted to keep the baby. She really needed to tell Bucky, but she couldn’t.

Bucky knew something was up. He knew Steph was keeping something to herself, but he never asked about it. She spent more and more time at the Avengers facility, so he spent more and more time tracking Hydra. All of it just made Steph feel guilty, but she didn’t know how to resolve it short of actually making up her mind.

Every now and then, when they were alone, Natasha would ask quietly, “Have you decided? Have you told him?” And Steph would always shake her head.

She knew she wanted to decide before she told him, but she couldn’t make the decision on her own. There were certainly tons of reasons why she shouldn’t keep the baby. Being an Avenger was one of them. Bucky’s potential Winter Soldier flashbacks was another. They didn’t have time for a kid. But then there was that tiny part of her, the dark and dusty corner in the back of her mind, that had created the vision Maximoff had shown her. As she had told Steph, her weakness was her dream.

Maybe she had forgotten in the intervening decades, even though she’d only experienced four of those past years, but there had been a time when she’d briefly allowed herself to hope for an “after the war.” That vision hadn’t come from nowhere. At one point, she must have thought that when the war was over, once they had _won_ , she would hang up the shield. She was a soldier, and she had served her time as Captain America. Back then she thought they wouldn’t need her anymore after the fighting was done. So she’d go home to Brooklyn. She’d go home with Bucky. And they… But that was as far as the dream got. Because then Bucky fell. And she crashed the plane.

When she woke up, the war was long since won. Which only meant it would never really be over for her. Ultron was wrong. It wasn’t that she couldn’t live without a war to fight. It was that there was always another war. There would always be another war, and another fight. And so the part of her that had once thought she could just go _home_ and be done with all this had been buried long ago. No, she really couldn’t have a baby. She didn’t get that kind of life.

But when she saw Bucky again, after she thought she had made her decision, she opened her mouth, and no words came out. He just looked at her, and she knew he knew that she was keeping something from him. They’d barely even touched, let alone had sex, in weeks. He looked at her and said, “Steph,” so quietly that she had to turn away in shame.

 

Which was how she found herself out on a mission by herself. It was routine. Steph found a Hydra cell and she was going to take it out without alerting the others. Bucky would be pissed at her. Sam would be pissed at her. Natasha would be pissed at her. But she needed the time on her own without worrying about her teammates, where she could just focus on the fight.

It was possible she was just outnumbered. It was also possible she was distracted, but she would never admit that. All of this could have legitimately happened even if she wasn’t thinking about the pregnancy.

She was going to try to shut down the Hydra base without alerting anyone to her presence. The problem was, she didn’t get very far in before she was seen. And then she found herself surrounded by Hydra agents. It wasn’t a new situation for her. She had fought her way out of worse. But as she turned to smash someone in the face with her shield, one of the agents sprayed some kind of gas in her face and she got a whole lung-full. It knocked her out immediately.

When she came to, her arms were chained above her head. The chains hung down from a metal hook in the ceiling. Her helmet was gone, and so was her shield. She was a bit roughed up, but as far as she could tell, she had no major injuries. They wanted her alive, for some reason. Knowing Hydra, that was never good. She just prayed they hadn’t done any scans of her. Hydra always wanted the secret to the super soldier serum, after all. And if they found out she was pregnant...

Steph looked up and her vision swam. That gas must have been pretty potent if she was still feeling the effects of it. They must have designed it specifically for her. She eyed the chains and tugged on them. They were good, sturdy chains, but that didn’t mean much to Captain America.

If she were a normal person, this position would have been killer on her. But the serum gave her increased strength everywhere, including the upper body. Carefully, she took fistfuls of the chains and started to swing herself up until she was almost upside down, with her feet on the chains above her head. She started to wrap the chains around her arms as she climbed higher and higher to the ceiling.

When she was at the top, she let go of the chains and spun down toward the floor, bracing her wrists so the chains wouldn’t dislocate her bones. Instead, the force and weight pulled the hook out of the ceiling and sent her crashing down to the concrete floor.

“Ow…” Steph mumbled. She had landed on her side hard, and probably would have broken a few bones if she wasn’t a super soldier. Though she would certainly have a bruise. She slowly picked herself up off the floor and unwound the chains until she could get her hands free. The next step was to find her shield. If she carried regular weapons, she would be okay with leaving them behind. But her shield was one-of-a-kind. And it was her symbol. She hated to think of someone using that against her, especially Hydra.

She was in some kind of cell, and she was sure the crashing sound would attract the guards’ attentions. So she positioned herself slightly behind the door and waited. Sure enough, a moment later, two guards came charging through the door. They were easy enough to dispatch with. She grabbed the first guy’s gun and yanked it up so she could smack him in the face, and then she yanked it down, flipping him over in the process. Before the second guy could react, she whipped the stolen gun around and butted him in the face with it. Both were out cold.

Steph held the gun at the ready as she crept around the edge of the door and down the low-ceilinged hallway. There were no windows, and only artificial light, so she assumed they were under ground, probably in some kind of bunker, which meant her chances were good that it was the same Hydra base she had infiltrated. So she probably wasn’t out long. They only had time to chain her up, not to move her.

As she rounded another corner, she came face to face with a whole group of Hydra agents. And not just any Hydra agents. These were what remained of STRIKE. Steph knew Sam and the falling Insight carrier had taken out Rumlow, and Natasha had taken out Rollins, but most of the team had apparently survived. Unexpectedly, Steph was filled with rage. These were the people who had been Bucky’s handlers when he was the Winter Soldier. These were the people who had eluded him for over a year.

She raised her gun when she saw them, but there was almost no point. She was drastically outnumbered. The guy in front, who probably had taken Rumlow’s position as head of STRIKE, faced her with a smirk. He fit the bill. Big and stocky, taller than Steph, though Rumlow hadn’t been. And was it her imagination, or did he seem, well… more muscular?

“Captain America. I told them that wouldn’t hold you.”

“Why even bother?” she asked. If they weren’t going to shoot her right away, then she might be able to get out of this in one piece.

“Can’t have you snooping in our business. And now that you’ve broken out, we’ve got probable cause to kill you.” The smirk grew wider and he raised his gun.

So much for that. “We’ve already done this dance, guys. You had me cornered and surrounded in an elevator and couldn’t beat me. What makes you think you have a chance now?”

“Now you’re not the only super soldier.”

Steph glanced around at the others, and she could tell they definitely looked bigger than the last time she had seen them. It wasn’t Erskine’s true super soldier serum, that was for sure. But it was enough to make them stronger. Damn. This just got a whole lot harder. Especially since she didn’t have her shield. She just hoped one of them would be arrogant enough to bring it out and try to use it against her.

“We’ll see about that,” she said, and then she moved. She shot out one guy’s knee and then darted around the room as the rest opened fire. With a quick flip, she brought the butt of the gun down onto another guy’s head.

“Just shoot her, damnit!” the leader said. He was also unsuccessful at hitting her with bullets.

Sure enough, someone to the side brought out her shield and said, “How about this? We kill Captain America with her own shield.” He turned it sideways and swung it at her.

Steph just managed to slide under the arc of the shield, but she could hear it whizzing by. She jumped up right in front of his face and grabbed the shield. She wrenched it sideways and twisted it enough that she sent the guy sprawling, while twisting the shield off his arm. Okay, that was a trick she had picked up from Bucky, as she hadn’t been too used to fighting against someone armed with her shield.

She turned and held it up to block more bullets as the others tried to hit her from behind. She expected all the bullets. But she didn’t expect the arm that came out of nowhere as she turned, and clothes-lined her. A normal human’s strength wouldn’t have been enough to move her, but this sent her crashing to the ground. She pushed herself up just as a foot came down where her head had been. She quickly rolled away and looked up to see the leader was coming after her bare-handed.

He swung his leg at her head again, and she pushed herself back to avoid it. She was finally back on her feet, and she used the opportunity to throw the shield. He just barely ducked to avoid it, but it hit the STRIKE person behind him, bounced off the wall, and ricocheted back to her. She caught it and blocked as the leader pulled a knife and slashed at her.

He was definitely one of Bucky’s handlers back when Hydra was still fully functional, because his training was the same. He pulled a second knife on her and then went at her dual wielding. Whatever super soldier serum cocktail Hydra had given him had increased his speed as well as his strength. They were getting closer to the actual serum.

Steph ducked again, but this time he did manage to nick her arm with one knife. Her reactions were still slow from whatever the hell that gas was. Damnit. And her side hurt from where she had landed on it. Okay, this was dumb, coming in here alone. And they had taken her comm, so she couldn’t even call for back up. Best to try to cut her losses and get out of there. She had her shield again, after all.

She used the small opening she had to bash the guy in the face with her shield, and use his moment of disorientation to make a bid for freedom. She did get around him and out the door on the opposite side, and was fairly certain she was heading the right direction to escape the facility.

“Not so fast!” he shouted from behind her. Before she could turn to glance at him, he jumped after her and tackled her to the ground.

Steph groaned in pain. The guy was huge and heavy. She had drugs lingering in her system, and they were almost evenly matched. In the tussle, her shield slid off her arm too, so she tried to scramble to get it back, while the STRIKE guy tried to hold her down.

His hand went to her throat, and she had to abandon the thought of the shield because she had to use all her strength to try to get him off. And then the other knife was there, and she only barely managed to grab his hand to keep him from stabbing her face. She grunted as she flipped him off, and then twisted to make one last mad dash for her shield.

Pain laced her side.

She couldn’t understand where it was coming from, but then she looked down and saw the knife sticking out of her gut. But the STRIKE guy wasn’t on her trying to kill her again. She half turned and saw he was clutching his head, and his eyes were popping, and bloodshot. It was the serum, she thought. She put her hand on the knife handle shakily and found blood soaking through her uniform.

Oh god. Oh god.

Steph collapsed in what was becoming a pool of her blood. The pain was bad. Every little movement ground the knife into her flesh, but she didn’t dare move it. Even she stood a chance of bleeding out. But she wasn’t sure her legs would listen to her anymore.

Oh god.

She reached out for her shield. She had to get it and get out of there. If she could just communicate with the Avengers, or Bucky, or anyone… A few inches from her shield, her hand dropped to the floor and she passed out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by Captain America #40. So blame Brubaker for this one.


	3. Chapter 3

_Beep… Beep… Beep…_

 

There was no Marvin Gaye this time.

That was a very strange first thought for Steph to have when she returned to consciousness. She hated waking up in hospitals, especially since she had done it far too many times in her life, mostly before the procedure. So she wasn’t confused about where she was when she finally drifted awake. It was obvious she was in some kind of hospital or possibly the infirmary at the Avengers facility. As her mind cleared, she recognized more of the room and realized she was definitely in the infirmary.

When she shifted, a gruff voice said, “You shouldn’t move yet.”

Steph turned her head and saw Bucky sitting there, beside her bed. He was actually there, at the Avengers facility, even though he had been avoiding coming anywhere near it since Steph had started training there. He was wearing civilian clothes, but instead of the regular baseball cap he used to hide his face, his hair was pulled back in a sloppy ponytail, with a few strands of hair hanging in front of his eyes. He leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees.

“The knife wound missed your old gunshot wound by about an inch,” he said matter-of-factly. While the serum did give her incredible healing, she still had a small scar on her stomach from where Bucky had shot her when she had been trying to get the last chip in place to stop the Insight helicarrier.

Subconsciously, Steph quickly raised her hand to her stomach. The padding there told her enough. She pushed the hospital sheets down enough that she could lift her shirt to see her abdomen was wrapped in bandages. It was tender when she pressed down on them. She could feel the pain straight through her core. It radiated in her hip bones.

Oh god.

Steph dropped the edge of her shirt and looked up to meet Bucky’s eyes again. He was amazingly calm, all things considered. He certainly looked like he hadn’t slept in at least 24 hours, but he gave off an air of patience. He wasn’t angry or frustrated. He wasn’t panicking. Steph opened her mouth, but no sound came out. So she closed it again and looked down.

“We discovered your comm had been offline for about an hour, so Sam was able to find where you’d last been when that happened,” Bucky continued when she didn’t say anything, still in that straight-forward tone of voice. “We found the Hydra base, and a bunch of guys who looked liked maybe they’d all had brain aneurysms. And you were lying there, with a knife sticking out of you.” The only indicator of his emotion was Bucky’s metal hand tightening into a fist. “Sam insisted you could get better help here, and he got Natalia to bring a quinjet. But when she saw you, she told us only one specific doctor would be able to help.” His face clouded. “She’s the one who performed surgery, but she only spoke to Natalia, not me. And even Natalia looked… upset.” He paused. “They didn’t tell me anything except that you would be okay.”

Steph watched him. Her hand, almost on its own, found its way under her shirt again to rub at the bandages there. She didn’t need the doctor or Nat to tell her. It was obvious what had happened. “Bucky…” she choked out, surprising herself at how raw her own voice sounded. His expression softened immediately. “I was pregnant…” she whispered.

The next moment, he was swiftly off the chair so he could kneel on the edge of the bed and take her face in both his hands. His flesh thumb brushed across her cheek and she realized it was to wipe away tears. Here she was, Captain America, crying. She never even cried before the serum, but now she couldn’t stop the tears. Bucky ignored his earlier command for her to not move and let her curl up against him. He shifted more to sit on the bed and let her cry into his shoulder. If anyone ever asked, she would blame it on the hormones.

Natasha came in a little later to explain the details. Before she began, she looked at Bucky, but Steph just nodded, so Nat didn’t make him leave. He was quiet while Natasha explained how Steph had lost the pregnancy. As she was about to leave, she paused in the doorway and looked back at her. “You okay, Steph?” It was clear she didn’t mean the physical injuries.

“Yeah,” Steph said. This time her voice didn’t crack. “I always am.”

Natasha looked at her for moment, but she didn’t say anything else. And she didn’t look at Bucky before leaving the room. They didn’t talk much after that. Steph had worn herself out from crying, and she had bruised her ribs from the fall, on top of getting stabbed in the gut. So she passed out again fairly quickly.

 

After a couple days, Steph was no longer confined to a hospital bed. The stab wound along with the bruised ribs meant she was still going to be sore and stiff for a while, and definitely wouldn’t be back in the field, but she could at least walk. She wrapped the edges of her sweater tightly around her sides and crossed her arms over her chest as she wandered the perimeter of the Avengers facility. Bucky wanted her to come back to Brooklyn, but she had decided to stay in upstate for a little while, even if she couldn’t be of any help to the Avengers. And she had to hand it to Howard. He had picked a beautiful place to build a storage facility.

Steph turned away from the treeline and saw Maximoff standing there watching her. She paused and tried to smile, but it felt too forced to her face. “Hey. Not going to be able to take part in your training for a little while. But Natasha’s good.”

Maximoff just watched her. Maybe she hadn’t sought Steph out to ask about training as Steph had thought (hoped). “I am sorry,” she said sincerely.

Steph shrugged, but it made her wince when it pulled on her abdomen. “I’ll live. And the important thing is to see what can be taken away from this so it doesn’t happen again. For me, that’s learning to not go into enemy territory without backup.”

“No, I…” Maximoff hesitated slightly. “I am sorry for your loss.”

Steph’s eyes flared open briefly, and she squeezed her arms a little tighter against her chest. “How did you know?” Maximoff open her mouth to answer, but Steph shook her head and said, “No, obviously, look who I’m talking to.” She met Maximoff’s eyes again. “Did you tell anyone?”

“No. I wanted to give condolences, myself.”

“I wasn’t going to keep it,” Steph said, which was the first time she had actually admitted it out loud. “So it isn’t necessary…”

Maximoff tilted her head. “You are grieving, still.”

“I…” Steph looked away. “So maybe I was going to get rid of it. But I didn’t get to make that choice. Even if the end result was the same, I wasn’t the one who got to decide. Someone else had that power over me, and I…”

“So, I am sorry, Captain.”

Steph looked back at her, and then she smiled bitterly and shook her head. “You were right about me. My weakness is my dream.”

“Is it really so unattainable?”

“The moment I decided to crash that plane into the ice, I gave up on the idea of ever fulfilling that particular dream. I know that.” Steph smiled, and this time it was real. “But I’m helping people and making a difference, which was what I always wanted. So it’s okay.”

“You never know, Captain. Life does have a way of surprising us all.” She half turned her head as if she was listening over her shoulder. Her lip quirked and then she looked back at Steph and nodded to her, before walking off.

A moment later, Bucky came around the corner. “That Maximoff kid is creepy…” he mumbled as he approached Steph.

“Was she in your head?” Steph asked.

“No. But she always stares at me.” He looked at her.

Steph sighed and dropped her arms. “That is not why you are here, though.”

“To talk about Maximoff? No.” He took half a step closer to her, but then thought better of it. “Why didn’t you tell me, Steph?”

“Heh.” The sound came out weakly. And while she smiled to match the weak laugh, it didn’t reach her eyes. “I really don’t know.” She ran her fingers through her hair and looked away.

“Damn, Steph, we could’ve had a _kid_. You’ve been carrying this around for months on your own.” He looked at her. “I thought we told each other everything.”

At least he didn’t jump to the stereotypical conclusion of asking if the baby hadn’t been his. “I… I was afraid,” she admitted. “I was afraid of how you’d react. And when I found out, I didn’t even know what to do, so I panicked. I kept it hidden. And the longer I kept it hidden, the harder it became to say anything.” Steph crossed her arms again. “I’m sorry… I should’ve told you… You had as much of a right to know and… make a decision.”

She heard him sigh, but she didn’t turn around to face him again. “If this…” he didn’t need to elaborate on what _this_ meant, “hadn’t happened, when would you have told me? _Would_ you have told me?”

That did make Steph look at him again. This time, she was the one to take a step closer. “Yes! I kept thinking I’d tell you once I made a decision, but I…” She looked down. “I never could decide until the choice was taken away from me.”

“And?” he prompted.

She shook her head. “I wasn’t going to keep the baby. Even aside from all the potential medical complications from our combined genes, there was no way I could have a baby.” She met his eyes, curious to see his reaction, but all she got was the Winter Soldier’s blank expression. “Things are going to get worse, not better, after all that stuff with Ultron. And this work, being an Avenger, it’s too important to give up right now, even temporarily.”

Bucky huffed out a sigh. Finally, finally, he reached out and pulled her into his arms, and she went to him willingly. He tucked her head under his chin and held onto her. “You’re such a martyr…” he whispered.

“As if you didn’t know that,” she said quietly. She wrapped her arms around his waist and held onto him too. “Also, pot, kettle.”

“I didn’t _choose_ to fall off that train,” he said, but his tone was half-joking. “You _chose_ to crash that plane.”

“You chose to follow me…” she said slowly, recalling Peggy’s words from a by-gone era.

He pulled back slightly so he could look down into her face. “Yeah, I did. And I still don’t regret that. So it’s about time you stop _blaming_ yourself for what happened.”

“I don’t…” she started to say as she looked up into his eyes.

“Steph,” he said to cut her off.

She sighed. “I can’t help it, Buck.”

“See? Self-sacrificing martyr.” He moved his right hand to cup the back of her head so he could pull her close and kiss her softly.

When she pulled back again, she said, “I love you…”

“Love you too.” His lip quirked slightly. “So next time, _tell_ me.”

“Hopefully there won’t be a next time. We’re going to be more careful from now on. We managed to get through the whole damn war with no accidents, after all. And that was in the 40s.” She hesitated. “But… maybe someday…”

He watched her and his fingers carded through her short hair. “Someday?”

“If… if you want. If I reach a point where I can hang up the shield, stop being Captain America. Once you’ve erased all your demons.”

“Well that one’s a long shot.”

She smiled. “I believe in you. You don’t have to be the Winter Soldier forever.”

He looked down at her curiously. “Maybe… But who knows how long that’ll take.”

“Well…” She leaned up and kissed the side of his face. “We’re both super soldiers. I think we’ve got time.”

He smiled and captured her mouth again. This kiss was much less slow and chaste than the last one. She gripped the front of his shirt to pull herself closer, and as she did, she felt the stitches on her stomach stretch and she hissed in pain.

He pulled back immediately. “Oh right, you’re still injured.”

“Only a little bit.” She didn’t let go of the front of his shirt or pull away.

He rolled his eyes and put his hands on her shoulders to gently push her back. “Only a little? You’re such an idiot. You should be resting.”

Steph frowned. “Like you don’t do the same thing when you get injured.”

“Yeah, yeah. We’re both idiots.” He wrapped his arm around her shoulders and turned her back toward the main building. “Come on. I’ll walk you back. And then maybe I’ll actually take a look at this Avengers facility of yours.”

Steph raised an eyebrow at him, and then started to walk back. “So does that mean you’re actually thinking of taking me up on that offer to join?”

He smirked and turned to look at her. “Well, someone’s got to keep an eye on you, Captain.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it took a few days to get this one up. Hell of a week.


End file.
